Has Friendly's gone completely to pot?

I have a Friendly's in my hometown and my mom likes to go there when I come to visit. Now, we went there a lot on Fridays when I was growing up to get ice cream as a special treat and I remember the ice cream being really good. Don't remember much about the food. Well, we went there a few months ago and I had a meatloaf dinner with mashed potatoes and corn that looked like someone had just inverted the TV dinner box onto the plate, it was so perfectly lined up into sections on the plate. The flavor was wretched. I think I would have preferred eating the plate itself.

Anyway, I don't expect great food from a place whose main trade is ice cream. But I was just there last week with my family and had gotten the Apple Cobbler Sundae. It tasted like it was fresh from the box. The cobbler pieces were dry and crumbly as though they had just been poured out of one of those topping bags you get in a boxed Betty Crocker mix. I remember Friendly's used to have a hot deep dish apple pie sundae that was great with hot apples and pieces of pie crust. Friendly's, why hast thou forsaken me?

A few months ago, simply because the location was convenient and time was short, my friend and I went to the Friendly's in Somerville, NJ. I have to say that there was absolutely nothing redeeming about my experience there. The food was bad (it isn't easy to ruin a sandwich, but they did), the service was slow and incredibly inept, and the place was not particularly clean. Trust me--I will never darken their door again!

Growing up in Rhode Island, Friendly's was always second to Newport Creamery, but just fine. Returning to the area we got around to trying a Friendly's for breafast. Haven't been back. Any place that serves a breakfast that tastes stale and unappetizing really has problems.

On the other hand, it was slightly better than the one breafast we had at Bickfords.

BTW - I may have told this story on another thread, but I once worked with a guy who worked part-time for many years at a Friendly's. He used to tell people, "please don't order the steak, I don't want you to have to beat me up in the parking lot."

Hello All,I've visited the Friendly's in Williamsburg, Va., and it wasn't bad at all. The first timeI had a British friend with me 3 years ago, and she loved it. She thought they offered alotfor low prices, and she loved their desserts.I revisited it a year ago while visiting my daughter at Wm & Mary, and again found it good, notgreat, but good. The service was good, but the waitstaff didn't really seem "friendly."It was very clean.Take Care,Fieldthistle

went to Friendly's in Lockport, NY over the summer. We went there for the ice cream, but we had lunch there as well. The food was marginal, but our sundaes were really really good. So, at least at this location, they still do the ice cream well.

Years ago, even when the food was passable at Friendly's (they had some melts popular with the kids; some cared for the ice cream), the service was exceptionally slow. It came to be a joke, trying to figure out what the help was doing. They looked busy, but nothing was happening.

Among the sadder things to witness in the World Gastronome is an orphaned chain, obviously on the way down, falling, falling, with no one anywhere who cares. No one to save it. It is but a property, a corporate name on a ledger, an idea no longer loved, passed from unwanting aunt to uncaring cousin, to ambivalent step-sister...until, the inevitable.

Pity is, for all its faults, it was once someone's favorite restaurant. They met friends there. Perhaps it was the first restaurant where they had lunch without their parents, where they paid out of "their own money" and left their first tip...all grown up now. So it would be nice if the place went the way of forgotten glory without such a demoralizing third act.

The demise, the occasional false hopes of renaisance, and the eventual plummet to extinction are painful.The Bear

Years ago, even when the food was passable at Friendly's (they had some melts popular with the kids; some cared for the ice cream), the service was exceptionally slow. It came to be a joke, trying to figure out what the help was doing. They looked busy, but nothing was happening.

Among the sadder things to witness in the World Gastronome is an orphaned chain, obviously on the way down, falling, falling, with no one anywhere who cares. No one to save it. It is but a property, a corporate name on a ledger, an idea no longer loved, passed from unwanting aunt to uncaring cousin, to ambivalent step-sister...until, the inevitable.

Pity is, for all its faults, it was once someone's favorite restaurant. They met friends there. Perhaps it was the first restaurant where they had lunch without their parents, where they paid out of "their own money" and left their first tip...all grown up now. So it would be nice if the place went the way of forgotten glory without such a demoralizing third act.

The demise, the occasional false hopes of renaisance, and the eventual plummet to extinction are painful.The Bear

yes, while I was in high school, (late 70's)we used to ride our bicycles through Echo Lake Park to the Friendly's in Mountainside (NJ). I remember buying a "diary" from the stationery store across the street.

The Hamburger Hamlet chain was dying for awhile , too...but they seemed to have came back to life a little more ; plus I had a great charred burger in Van Nuys, CA Hamburger Hamlet a few years back.

Friendly's still has way too many more locations than it deserves (IMO)I believe it is a bank now...

Their location in Warrenton, VA is horrible. This is a small town seriously lacking in breakfast food restaurants so it seems like everyone in town goes here on Saturday mornings.They stop serving breakfast foods at 11 AM. What is that all about?Flies everywhere.Dirty tables.Surly wait staff.If this is the model for current Friendly's restaurants, no wonder so many of them are closing.The cheeseburger I ended up eating at 11 AM (somehow I'm reminded of the classic "cheeseburger" sketch on SNL) was cold and had a hair in it.

Their location in Warrenton, VA is horrible. This is a small town seriously lacking in breakfast food restaurants so it seems like everyone in town goes here on Saturday mornings.They stop serving breakfast foods at 11 AM. What is that all about?Flies everywhere.Dirty tables.Surly wait staff.If this is the model for current Friendly's restaurants, no wonder so many of them are closing.The cheeseburger I ended up eating at 11 AM (somehow I'm reminded of the classic "cheeseburger" sketch on SNL) was cold and had a hair in it.

I always check 2 things when I go to a restaurant the bathrooms and the floor if I am not happy with either I usually will not stay.

In Upstate NY there are a number of Friendly's around and we used to go there quite often. over the the past few years quality has gone way down and prices have gone way up. They are charging over 4.00 for their original sized Sundae and 9.00 for chicken tenders. At this point we would only go there in a real pinch or maybe if I had a buy one get one free Sundae coupon.As far as service don't order anything special, if it is not in the picture they will screw it up.

Wow does this thread bring back memories. I worked at a Friendly's at White Marsh Mall in White Marsh, MD back in the early 80's while I was in college. I worked the soda fountain, and eventually wound up working at all the different stations. One thing that really stands out in my memory was how obsessed the CSR's (customer service reps) and managers/assistant managers were on product costs. Every night they would tally up the product costs for the night - including ice cream, if you can believe it, and would get very, very upset if we were the least bit over (apparently they had some super-secret formula for comparing the sales to the product costs).

Any case, the focus on costs was all-encompassing. They would deliberately raise the temperature on the milk fridges to save on electricity. If a bowl of fudge burned in the fudge burner, it was not thrown away, nor would they allow us to throw away spoiled milk or spoiled bananas. If you were to throw away an ice cream can (they're called cans though they're really just long rectangular boxes) without getting approval from the CSR or manager, you'd get written up. I could also list some very unsavory things we were told to do, but will keep those to myself. I will say there were a few things I really enjoyed. The orange sodas, for example, made with orange sherbet, orange syrup, and soda water, were absolutely delicious. I also very much enjoyed Friendly cola, believe it or not. I'm sure they served Friendly cola because it was cheaper than Coke or Pepsi.

Any case, I worked that Friendly's restaurant for six months and have not eaten at a Friendly's in the 23 years since. Never will, either.

Another case of someone taking over a franchise and driving it into the ground. I haven't gone there in a long time (& there's one at the top of my block) and I dont expect to in the future. poor value, hit or miss on the food & service.

That is where I got my Thanksgiving Turkey dinner last year.Shared it with my little doodlebug.........I am sure he appreciated it more than me!It was "acceptable"--Freeport, Maine location....Not sure whats going on this year.....Hard to believe its almost T-day again...

the worst for me is when I am on a road trip with my sister , her hubby, and the kids...and my niece starts yelling "friendly's , friendly's, friendly's!!",and we end up making the pit stop to eat there (ugh!!!)...

I remember visiting Friendly's in 1977. My first wife, a Massachusetts lass, took me there in fond memory of her childhood. I remember the ice ceam as passable and the $0.99 breakfast special as okay. It is sad to hear of its decline.

When I was little my grandmother always took us kids to Friendly's for lunch...including ice cream. They used to have the ice cream selections on these slowly rotating louvered boxes...usually these displays had a low hum...mesmerizing! I think Friendly's are still very much the same as they used to be...cheap food, not very good, and lots of it in a serving, that kids like. But the quality has gone down somewhat. It is the corporate thing, and absentee owners.